Hi !
I just received my shapeways prints of this 2 guys from the old adventure game Day of the Tentacles, I'm so happy with the result, I can't believe it worked that great.

They are 5cm heigth and cost me 30$ (22¤ ) for the 2 in full color. I was worried about the arms and eyebrow thickness but it's fat enought.
It was my first test, and it sure will not be the last.
Tell me what you think of them

I have to mention that I will make no profit on them, because that's not my original design, it's just a tribute to one of my favorite games.
I previously didn't allowed ordering because I wanted to make sure that the result was good enought.
Now, enjoy !

Hm in mail they told me it's okay if it's only on private order option.
I think it's because shapeways makes a profit and with that is infringing on lucasarts copyright.

I have a model which is original by me but uses many aspects of a trademark (It's kind of a parody.) and wondering myself if it's at all possible to get permission to sell it or if it's infringement in the first place. I just took the plunge and just mailed people that might be able to get hold of someone who makes decisions on the licence and possibly gives permissions ^^
(can't hurt to try)

Your models are awesome regardless and I think I will order them.
This is the color sandstone material? I'm new sorry, my shop only got approved today and only have 1 model done for printing so far.

Good luck with getting permissions. I've tried a few companies so far. Waiting for a company that does not sound like stick that makes lighters to see if they will let me use the name of their product to say that my product will fit their product. If I can get permission from a lighter company to let me do so, I'll tell the company that sounds like stick where to stick their lighter. Till then I'll continue to make lighter covers that cover their lighter without using their name.

[Updated on: Tue, 30 March 2010 19:25 UTC]

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me. -Maya Angelou
michael@shapeways.com Community Advocate

Copyright is clearly an issue on this tentacles. I'm sorry to ear that you can't get them. As I wrote before, I didn't want to do any markup on this, I just wanted to do some fan stuff. But I didn't think about Shapeways markup...

Still, I think that I'm not the first to do some copyrighted models, it's clearly normal to protect creations. But I hope that creators of Day of Tentacles could be proud to see that their game still have some fans around.

So I ask for admins : do I have to remove them from the shop, is any order will be possible ?

Shapeways is a young business and there are a lot of things that we still have to figure out. On the subject of copyright/IP we are however very clear in our legal texts/content policy (which is very humanly readable so you don't have to hire a lawyer to understand them) as well as in Joris's recent post.

Having said that I do really like your tentacle models, (being a Lucasarts point&click junky myself). The colours are also absolutely vibrant.

Now I don't know about this from first hand, but I do know that the guys who build scummVM (the open source, freely available SCUMM engine that will play old point&click games) also have such troubles.

From what I understand however, they tend to track down the original developers of the games instead of contacting Lucasarts. Which I assume is about as useful as putting a note in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean, but who who knows? San Francisco is a coastal city.
But anyway, games in those days didn't get developed by armies of developers and artists but just a hand full of compassionate people, people who do have the contacts to get those permissions and who are more likely to be cooperative then the company that owns the rights.

It will be a long shot either way, but I would really like to see you get permission so I can order a pair for myself
Until then I will just have to make do with the game itself, *starts up day of the tentacle*

It will be a long shot either way, but I would really like to see you get permission so I can order a pair for myself
Until then I will just have to make do with the game itself, *starts up day of the tentacle*

Joke aside, I think that you will regularly have some Superman, Spiderman, whateverman... models from fans, just because your business can really interest fans of stuffs who wants their unique figurine. I think you should maybe start aproaching some big labels such as Marvel, Blizzard, MacDonald, etc... And why not then propose to users of Shapeways to model their vision of a particular licence. For example, "Hey folks, this month is the month of Crabman, copyright offered by Earl.inc !"
Just a thought.
Thanks anyway for the input, I'm glad you like tentacles too. *Going back to Dr Fred's mansion*

Good luck with getting permissions. I've tried a few companies so far. Waiting for a company that does not sound like stick that makes lighters to see if they will let me use the name of their product to say that my product will fit their product. If I can get permission from a lighter company to let me do so, I'll tell the company that sounds like stick where to stick their lighter. Till then I'll continue to make lighter covers that cover their lighter without using their name.

Lol! Good humor!

Question though, for all the companies that make iPod accessories and devices, do they have to pay Apple just to say it works with their product? I don't think they do so you should be fine with saying it is for the lighters that rhyme with "stick"? Another example would be the mass of products that fit or work with the Amazon E-reader Kindle, I don't think they have to pay Amazon to say that it fits such-and-such-size of Kindle, and they sell their products on Amazon itself...